The School of Dental Medicine last month completed the first stage of its renovation by unveiling its newly designed second floor for student, staff and patient use, according to Associate Dean for Clinical Affairs James Hanley.
The second floor of the building, which is located on Tufts' Boston campus, now boasts increased clinical space for the graduate school's four−year Doctor of Dental Medicine (DMD) program, Hanley said. The addition of 53 new treatment rooms enlarged the DMD clinic capacity by 50 percent, he noted.
"It was a major renovation in which we basically stripped everything down to the bare walls, rebuilt it and installed the latest state−of−the−art dental equipment," Hanley said.
The renovation project began in November of 2010, following the completion of a five−story vertical expansion project in 2009, which allowed for greater space for patient treatment and post−graduate programs.
With the 53 new and more intimate treatment rooms, the academic clinical area is now organized more like a real dental practice, according to Robert Quigley, a principal at ARC/Architectural Resources Cambridge, whose firm was responsible for the re−design project.
"I think what's beneficial is that we have more clinical availability, so that allows us to be more efficient in patient treatment and management," Division Head of Operative Dentistry and Clinical Associate Professor Peter Arsenault said.
Arsenault's department, the Department of Prosthodontics and Operative Dentistry, is one of the programs now housed on the building's second floor. "[The renovation] really allowed us to enhance the student experience as far as giving them more opportunities to provide clinical care to patients," Arsenault said. "It also enhanced the care of those patients because we can now provide the care on a more timely basis."
Hanley believes that the teaching environment has been enriched by the expansion.
"All of the care that is provided in those clinical areas is supervised by our clinical faculty, so the design down there really improves the teaching environment for the faculty," he said. "This then translates into advantages for the students and patients."
Before the vertical expansion, few architectural changes had been made to the original building, which first opened in 1973, according to Hanley. The only alterations were replacement of dental equipment with new gear, he said.
Hanley explained that the next step of the renovation process remains ambiguous. "We're not sure what we're going to do next and how we're going to do it either," he said.
Dean of the School of Dental Medicine Huw F. Thomas, who assumed this role in August, has decided to slow down any projects until he and his colleagues map out a strategic plan for the future, according to Hanley.
They still hope to renovate other areas of the original 10−story building, Hanley noted.
"It's just a matter of financing and prioritizing the renovations based upon our overall plan for the dental school facilities," Hanley said. "If we were going to do to the third floor what we did to the second floor, we would look at the cost of that [and] the importance in the realm of our mission, which is patient−centerededucation."
"How is it going to improve patient care and improve the education of our students, and is that the next thing we have to do?" he continued. "We'll know better when we do an overall assessment and come up with a plan."
